weddings, tennis and work

Had a fun weekend in Devon for Fan and Pete's wedding. It was quite the occasion. They hired out this place for the whole weekend. As oldest brother of the bride, James (and therefore me too) got to stay in one of the very cool rooms: Puccini. We arrived on the Friday night and had champagne and lasagne and more wine before crashing out. On Saturday morning, we thought about playing tennis, but the courts were very old and in poor repair, and it was raining, so we decided against it. The rain continued, which was really sad (and annoying, given that the days either side of the weekend were beautiful and sunny) because the afternoon activity was a fifties garden party. Pimms, sandwiches, cupcakes, boules and croquet - all of which would have been much more fun had it not been freezing and drizzling. Still, I suppose it was particularly English. James wore a linen suit and I wore this dress (but with a sparkly silver belt, rather than pink, no flower, and hot pink heels. oh and 50's curled hair of course). I was very pleased to have got the theme just right (some were rather less impressive), and it was fun for everyone to get dressed up. High point: someone who thought I looked like Christina Aguilera. Low point: someone who thought the ten year old I was with was my daughter. (I was outraged that someone thought I looked old enough to have a ten year old daughter... until I realised I am totally old enough to have a ten year old daughter. Sigh). At 4.30 everyone was called inside for the ceremony, for which the bride had changed into her really rather fabulous (but eye-wateringly expensive) Vera Wang wedding dress. The ceremony was lovely and was followed by a champagne reception and confetti (rose petal) throwing. Brief respite to go and warm up and get changed for the evening, which was black tie. I love getting dressed up, but having to get into my second pair of high heels for the day, when I normally live in my Converse All Stars was something of a shock to the system. Still, I managed to totter downstairs in time for champagne cocktails (kir royale...mmm), and then dinner (Brixham crab and salad followed by beef wellington with mash and asparagus followed by handmade chocolate profiteroles). By the time dinner was over, it was about 10.30pm. I stayed up to watch the bride and groom have their first dance (the wedding band's rather bizarre cover of The Smiths' 'There Is A Light That Never Goes Out' - a cool choice, even if strangely executed), but conked out around midnight. Got up reasonably early the next morning and drove back to London, where the cat was so happy to see us that she was running around faster than her legs could keep up with and kept falling over. Pretty damn adorable.

And now back to the real world. Well, back to work anyway. My new thing is to write 1000 words a day, and then that's it. No guilt if I can just finish that, and Mon-Fri only. Haven't done much today yet, but will get there, and I'm taking tomorrow off because we're going to Wimbledon (yay!!), but in general, this is working. I'm really going to try to get a lot done in the mornings so that I can have guilt-free tennis watching in the afternoons. I love Wimbledon fortnight!